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Monday, September 5, 2016

#LTW: #gifted students and #memory problems

Memory is very important when it comes to learning anything new and storing it away for future use. Sometimes gifted students have problems with their short term memory, especially the spatially gifted learner.

Memory

Although the temporal, parietal and
occipital lobes have their own distinct functioning in the brain, they all
contribute to the learning process through memory acquisition and retention. The
occipital lobe, located in the back of the brain, is responsible for the
processing of incoming information.

The temporal lobe,
located in the lower part of the cerebral cortex, is responsible for
controlling the information transfer from short-term to long-term memory. When
a student learns something new the information is first processed through the
short-term or working memory then stored in the long term memory after the
temporal lobe transfers the information to the hippocampus

Bruning, Schraw & Norby found that people
can hold large amounts of information with in their memory when information is
presented in chunks. Chunks are meaningful units of information presented to
the learner. A learner cannot hold more than seven chunks of information at one
time. Monru (2013) found gifted students are able to process larger chunks of
information at one time. They also are able to retain more knowledge within
their short-term memories than their peers. Geake (2009) found gifted
children’s working memory has a higher efficiency rate than their non-gifted
peers. Gifted children are able to achieve this through the use of a high-level
frontal cortex with a bilateral frontal-parietal network.

The parietal lobes,
located near the crown and rear of the head, constructs spatial maps and mental
images. Munro (2013) found gifted children begin with a higher prefrontal
activity but as they progress into their teen years the enhanced activity
transfer to the parietal lobes. Thus the student loses their advanced abstract
thinking and gains the ability to learn more quickly through mental images and
spatial reasoning. Some gifted students excel in mental images and spatial
reasoning more than others. These gifted students are known as gifted
visual-spatial learners.

Sword (2011)
identified two types of gifted visual-spatial leaner; 1) children who are identified
with extremely high IQ’s on an IQ test because they have a greater ability
completing tasks with visual-spatial and auditory-sequential thinking process.
And 2) bright children who are often are not identified with a high IQ on a
standardized IQ test because they have a great visual-spatial with a lower than
normal auditory-sequential thinking process. The later are after “at-risk”
because they are not identified and/or receive the extra support that is
required for them to become academically successful. Sword (2011) found gifted
visual-spatial learners possess poor auditory short-term memory and think
primarily in pictures. Thus, when teaching a gifted visual-spatial learner the
educator needs to be aware that these gifted students need to visualize the
material in order to learn. Sword (2011) also found gifted visual-spatial
learners experience oversensitivity to physical stimuli due to their
supersensitive nervous systems.

Geake,
J. (2009). The Brain at School:
Educational Neuroscience in the Classroom. Retrieved from ttps://books.google.com/books?id=jwNFBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=gifted+parietal&source=bl&ots=4WKKXCPmQP&sig=Fh0idjpigXrKyD5uo-Txm1T08BY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCWoVChMIr-CgwbCQxgIVCBmSCh0cowJU#v=onepage&q=gifted%20parietal&f=false

Gross,
G. (2013, October 21). Who is the gifted Child [Web log post]? Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-gail-gross/who-is-the-gifted-child_b_4119720.html

Monru,
J. (2013). High-Ability Learning and
Brain Processes:How Neuroscience can help us to understand how gifted and
talented students learn and the implication for teaching. Paper presented a
the Research Conference, Australia